Familiar paths
by arwenae
Summary: An enterprise away team encounters an intelligence that forces them to enact folk tales/mythology. I own nothing of Star Trek. Also, please tell me if I make canon errors so I can fix it.
1. Chapter 1

This was going to be longer, but I decided to favour update speed over length. More coming soon.

"Readings, Mr Spock?"

"Planet is borderline class M, Captain." came the first officer's swift reply." Atmosphere higher in oxygen and carbon dioxide than is normal, which may be both cause and result of the large amounts of vegetation on the surface."

"Habitable then," mused the Captain. "Intelligent life, Spock?"

"I can find no signs of it, Captain." Kirk swung around to face his science officer. This was decidedly unusual. Spock continued, by way of explanation; "I find traces of only small mammal and insect-type life forms, all with only minimal intelligence. Nothing that could be classed as sentient."

"Is this a young world then, Mr Spock?"

"Quite the contrary, Captain. It has been in existence for at least two billion years longer than your Earth." Captain Kirk frowned. It sounded like yet another long investigation into yet another of the anomalies of the universe. Sometimes he thought one could get tired of endless unforeseen delays in this mission. Still- He would never have taken the job if he didn't love, deep down, all the little things that they did to look a little deeper into the great mysteries of the cosmos.

"Captain!" Lieutenant Sulu's voice broke across Kirk's reverie. "Scanners detect structures on the surface!"

"On screen and magnify to maximum." ordered Kirk. Sulu complied, and the bridge crew were treated to a slightly blurred image of a small cluster of smooth metallic domes, the largest about the size of a sports stadium. "No intelligent life, you said, Spock?" Kirk asked, half-joking.

"None that my scanners could detect." It was Spock's turn to frown now. "It is possible that this planet was briefly settled then abandoned, or that its inhabitants dwell too far below ground for my scanners to reach them, although such an eventuality is highly improbable."

"Of course it is, Mr Spock." Kirk smiled. "But in this job we seem to encounter the utterly impossible six times before breakfast, so the merely improbable is looking increasingly more likely to me these days."

"Six times before breakfast, Captain?" Spock's frown deepened. "I do not recall-"

"It was not intended to be a literal statement of fact, Mr Spock." The Captain sighed. "In any case, I'd say that those domes merit further investigation. Spock, you said that the surface can support human life?"

"Undoubtedly Captain."

"Then report to the transporter room in fifteen minutes, with your tricorder and anything else you deem necessary. Sulu, you and Chekov come along as security. You might get a chance to have a look at some of the local vegetation too."

"Thank you Captain." Sulu left his post and headed off to collect his equipment. Another crewman smoothly took his place.

Kirk swivelled in his chair. "You want to come, Uhura?"

His communications officer blushed. "Well, yes sir, I do. But why would I be included?"

The captain smiled. "If we do end up below ground it could be useful to have a communications expert with the team. Besides which, you've been stuck on board ship for a few months now. I'm sure Doctor McCoy would advise me to let you get a bit of real air before you go stir-crazy."

"Damn right I would!" Kirk's grin grew wider. He'd thought that the doctor would be listening in on the sick-bay channel- just in case the captain did something overly foolhardy of course. Not in any way to satisfy his own overwhelming curiosity about each new planet they observed. Not in the slightest. "But Jim, you can't go gallivanting off to an unknown planet without any medical support, especially if you might be going out of transporter range. If I-"

"I thought you were busy with Crewman Thomas' leg wound?" interrupted Kirk. "You told me he required your constant supervision because of the rad-burning."

"Well-yes." The doctor's disappointment was evident. "But you can still take as member of my staff with you. I don't need all of them here for one man."

Kirk knew when to give in. "Alright Bones, if you insist. Who can you spare?"

"I'll send Nurse Chapel down to the transporter room. She's capable enough, and I suspect most of the others are too in awe of you to make you take your medicine when you need it." With a laugh, the captain closed the channel. His day was looking up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: If you find my attempts at writing Chekov's accent annoying in the first couple of chapters, tell me and I'll probably drop it for later chapters. I'm not very sure how to do it yet.**

Fifteen minutes later, the team assembled in the transporter chamber. Mr Scott wished them luck as usual as he activated the transporter.

They materialised about twenty yards from a dome that was the approximate size of the enterprise bridge, if a bit taller. The lush vegetation of the planet surrounded them on all sides, and Sulu almost immediately crouched down to take a sample of a small fern-like plant whilst he had the opportunity. "Ve are on security duty, Mr Sulu." Chekov reminded him sternly.

"Relax a little. We scanned this area for life before we set down. Besides, this looks quite similar to _Rumohra Gladia_, the one that fetches the big money in interstellar floristry."

"Ah. Suddenly everything becomes clear." said Chekov, somewhat sarcastically.

"It could be important if the planet is ever up for settlement, that's all." Sulu defended himself.

"If you two had been paying attention," Uhura broke in. "You would have noticed that everyone else is over at the dome." So they were. The Captain and Mr Spock appeared to be searching for an entrance, watched from a few yards further back by Nurse Chapel.

Suitably abashed, the two security men hurried over to join the two officers. "It's completely smooth on all surfaces." The Captain commented. "Nothing that looks like an entrance anywhere. I- Spock, what are you doing?"

"Scanning for variations on the molecular level, Captain." Mr Spock had his tricorder out and was crouched next to the dome, moving the device about close to the metallic surface. "It is entirely possible that, given a suitably advanced culture, entrances could be extremely close fitting and virtually undetectable to limited sensory apparatus such as your human eyes and fingers."

"Aren't they undetectable to your Vulcan eyes and fingers too, Mr Spock?" Kirk challenged.

"Of course, Captain, or I would not find it necessary to test for one in this manner." The Vulcan didn't even look up, seeming not to notice anything unusually antagonising in his Captain's tone. Kirk didn't press the point.

After about five minutes of slow scanning, Spock looked up from his tricorder. "I believe I have it, Captain." Slowly, he reached out to the surface of the dome, using his tricorder readings to guide his fingertips. "There appear to be three distinct points of molecular abnormality. I shall attempt to…" Spock's voice trailed off as he closed his eyes in concentration, three long fingers resting gently on the dome. For several moments the group stood motionless, no-one wishing to disturb their science officer during the heightened sensitivity he experienced when he used his Vulcan techniques. Then, with a silence that seemed almost anticlimactic, a section of the dome, perhaps seven feet in height, and no more than two feet wide, slid gently forwards from its (previously indistinguishable) surroundings and moved aside, leaving an opening onto a gently lit space within.

Fighting a strong urge to applaud, Kirk stepped forwards. "Well done Mr Spock! Gentlemen?" He gestured briskly to the rest of the landing party, and led the way inside.

Kirk wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting, but he had somehow assumed that there would be _something_. Not just the inside walls of the dome, as smooth and featureless as the exterior, and a yellow/white floor that glowed faintly, as though lit from below. It gave no obvious hints as to any purpose that it might have. Spock came to stand beside him, already busy with the tricorder. "I suppose that it is logical that the culture responsible for the door mechanism would feel little need for decorative or functional furnishings of the human type," he commented. "However, there does seem to be some form of energy present here. I am attempting to ascertain-" but the Vulcan's next words went unheard, as a strong white light blazed around the landing party, dazzling them all.

Kirk was aware only of a strong jerking sensation beneath his navel before his feet struck rough, uneven ground and he stumbled to his knees. Flinging out a hand to support himself, he was surprised to feel a cool, fuzzy substance beneath him. He paused, blinking away the afterimages of the light, and then looked down. Moss. Or what appeared to be moss, at any rate. Green, fuzzy, had small roots… moss was as good a word as any at this moment in time. Clambering cautiously to his feet, Kirk gazed around him. Soft, golden sunlight streamed silently down on him through the leaves of trees he would swear to be mature earth-oaks if he didn't know better. The dappled light made the small woodland clearing that Kirk was currently occupying glow, dancing dust-motes settling silently against a many- textured tapestry of soothing greens.

Idyllic though the scene was, the Captain was far from relaxed by its appearance. Most of his tension was due to the simple fact that, in the midst of this display of natural beauty, he was quite, quite alone.

His communicator whistled.


	3. Chapter 3

The Captain scrabbled at the communicator, jerking it open with what Spock would doubtless have termed unnecessary violence. "Kirk here," he barked.

The voice that came was weak, interspersed with crackling interference. "Scott here, Captain. We've lost the transporter lock. Did anything happen down there?"

"What do you mean you've lost the lock?" the Captain raised his voice as if that would somehow help the wavering com-link to stabilise.

"What I tell ye is what I know, Cap'n." came the somewhat garbled response. "A few moments ago it was as if ye just vanished. We can just about get comms, but I cannae get a strong enough signal tae get your co-ordinates. Did ye go underground or summat?"

"I don't know, Scotty, I- hold on, I'm going to try and get Uhura."

"Are ye no' with her, Cap'n?"

"No." was Kirk's curt reply as he cut his engineering officer off. He quickly flipped his communicator open again and called Uhura. To his relief, she answered promptly.

"Captain! Thank goodness!"

"Uhura, are you alright? Where are you?" The reception was not as strong as Kirk would have liked, and still contained too much interference, but it was far clearer than that on Scotty's transmission.

"I'm in some sort of forest, Captain. The sun is out, and it's all very pretty, but I honestly have no idea where I am."

At least it sounded as though she was in the same forest, thought Kirk. Although, for all he knew, this forest could be the size of Africa. "Are you alone, then?"

"Yes, Captain. Are you receiving me as badly as I'm receiving you, sir?"

"I think so, lieutenant. Is there anything you can do about it?"

"I can give it a go, sir. It might be possible to strengthen the link between the communicators of the away team. I don't know about communications with the Enterprise, though…"

"If you can get me a strong link with the team down here I will be eternally grateful, lieutenant." After all, Kirk reasoned, much as he loved his ship, the lives of the away team were a much more pressing concern.

"Alright sir. Hold on, I'm going to try some jiggery-pokery at my end." There was a long-ish pause, accompanied by various electrical noises and bursts of static. Then he heard Uhura's voice again, much more clearly than before. "Is this better, sir?"

"That's wonderful, Uhura. Thank you." Kirk cleared his throat and made a wide-spectrum call to all of the away-team communicators within range- he hoped to God that none of them were out of range or damaged. "Kirk to away team. Sound off. I want to know who's alive and where you are. Go." He paused. After about a second's tense waiting, he was rewarded with the sound of Chekov's voice though the subspace link.

"Chekov here, Keptin. I am in a structure of some sort. The door is locked and I cannot force it. There is a small vindow in the back wall, but all that I can see through it is trees, sir."

"Well, use your phaser, man!" The Captain's mood was not improving.

"I have tried, Keptin. It had no effect. The door is wood, but the phaser does not burn it!"

Kirk sighed. Problems after problems. "Alright, we'll try to reach you. What sort of structure is it?"

"Well, Keptin, this sounds wediculous, but it looks like an old-fashioned cottage, like they used to have in old Wussia."

"A cottage?"

"Yes, sir. It is all wery…. quaint."

Kirk sighed. Something else that couldn't be explained- yet! "Alright then." He switched to open broadcast once again. "You others. Report!"

"Sulu here, Captain. I'm with Nurse Chapel in some sort of forest clearing."

"Good." At least those two were together. "Whatever you do, stay with her, Sulu. How about you, Mr Spock?" There was no response from the Vulcan. "Spock? Spock, are you there? Spock!" Uhura, Chekov, Sulu and Chapel listened with mounting disquiet as their Captain continued to hail his first officer, to no avail.

Somewhere else entirely, Commander Spock listened to his Captain's appeal with increasing desperation. Unable to move or speak, he could only listen in mute frustration as Kirk's cries grew filled with panic.

"Spock!" Kirk continued to call, unheeding of his surroundings, until at last Sulu's voice broke across his mounting hysteria, tentative at first, then slightly more confidently.

"Captain? Captain!"

Kirk felt like snapping at Sulu, but he instinctively realised that the man deserved some respect for having dared to interrupt his Captain at such a moment. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. Then, keeping his voice as steady as he could in the circumstances, he replied. "What is it, Mr Sulu?"

"Captain, do you have any orders, sir?" Concerned for his first officer though he was (and "concerned" was an understatement), Kirk realised that Sulu had a point. With no information, he couldn't do anything to help Spock, or even be sure that he was in trouble. He had to do his best to keep safe those members of the away team that he could contact. And the first step towards that, he reasoned, was finding them all.

"Yes, Mr Sulu, I do. We all seem to be within a forest, so logically," (he winced at his own word choice, but continued regardless), "_logically_, we should be able to find each other. Since Chekov can't move it looks like it's up to the rest of us to get to him. I want you all to try and find that cottage and rendezvous there. Report any developments immediately."

"Aye-aye Captain." Sulu turned to Nurse Chapel, who had straightened up from her seat at the base of a nearby tree, and was busily brushing pine needles from her skirt.

"You heard the man, Nurse. We'd better get a move on." He unstrapped his tricorder and began to scan the area.

"There's a structure of some sort to the north-west of us. Looks to be about the right size for a cottage. It's as good a place to start as any. Not too far away, either, not more than a mile or so."

"Roger. We'd best get a move on, or it'll be night before we know it." And, Sulu's tricorder held out ahead of them, the two moved out into the forest.


	4. Chapter 4

Pavel Chekov threw himself unceremoniously down onto a wooden bench, which bounced slightly as he did so, disturbing a small cloud of sawdust. It was humiliating, he thought, for an officer of Starfleet to be unable to free himself from a simple peasant cottage. He sincerely hoped that it wouldn't be Sulu who came to let him out. Some time would be needed before he could recover enough pride to look his friend in the eyes again. Rising impatiently from the bench, Chekov began to pace the stone-flagged floor, gazing about himself for a possible means of escape. He disliked this feeling of helplessness, longing for a task of some sort. Finally, he decided to take another look at the cottage's only window.

This window was located at the rear of some sort of hayloft, currently bereft of all but a few lonely wisps of straw from a previous harvest. The loft itself was little more than a large shelf, reached from the cottage floor by means of a thin wooden ladder. Chekov ascended this with some caution, unsure as yet to what degree the somewhat aging wood could be trusted to support him.

The hayloft somehow managed to be warmer than the rest of the cottage, rays of light from the tiny window illuminating thousands of gently drifting dust motes in the air. This, however, was about all the use that the window could be to Chekov. Not only was it far too small for him to even conceive of getting his body through it, the only view that it gave was of the largest bramble patch that he had ever seen (admittedly, given the lifestyle of a Starfleet cadet, this wasn't saying much, but even if he had grown up in 17th century Britain, it would still have been pretty impressive). With the smallest of sighs, Chekov slumped against the crumbling plaster wall beside the window in solemn resignation to his fate.

It was at this moment that he heard a scratching, scrabbling sound at the door, followed by a slight grunt, as if of frustration. Pausing only to pick up his communicator from the loft floor, Chekov scrambled to his feet and headed for the ladder, calling out to his rescuer as he did so.

"That was qvick! I'll be wight there!"

About halfway down the ladder, a splintering sound stopped him in his tracks. The wood of the doorframe bulged and shook, before a portion of it finally gave up under the strain, showering the stone flags with shards of wood. Before Chekov could so much as muster an expletive, something huge, hairy and snarling burst into the room like a savage whirlwind.

With a shrill squeak of terror, Chekov regained the relative safety of the hayloft at lightning speed, kicking away the ladder almost instinctively. His back pressed against the plaster of the wall, he gazed uncomprehendingly down at the creature now engaged in destroying large amounts of the cottage's furniture. He had never seen anything like it before. And yet- it seemed familiar…

Treacherous memories crept back into his head. His mother, oh, so long ago, telling him old earth stories, teaching him about creatures and places that no longer existed, and perhaps had never existed. And Chekov remembered the Big Bad Wolf.

* * *

"Look, Hikaru. There, between those trees. No, a little to your right."

"Oh." Lieutenant Sulu finally saw what it was that Nurse Chapel had spotted some moments earlier. Not far off, though distance seemed to mean less in this dense, tangled forest, was the silhouette of a squat dwelling with somewhat more substance than the shadowy mirages the setting sun had been providing for the last quarter of an hour.

"I think you're right, Chris. It looks solid enough. Try to keep it in view if you can."

"Got it." With that, the two began once more to resolutely force their way through bog and briar towards their goal.

* * *

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Uhura also found herself within sight of a cottage. Situated in a large clearing some way ahead of her, it seemed to be every inch the traditional western peasant home, images of which had always fascinated her in the history texts. Granted, she'd expected that in real life such dwellings must have been slightly more, well, dirty, than the pretty graphics had suggested, but this one gleamed. The afternoon sunlight made its thatch glow as though aflame. Shifting her balance on the wide branch, Uhura reached for her communicator.

"Uhura to Captain Kirk."

"Kirk here. What's your situation, Uhura?"

"I believe I have found the cottage, sir. It conforms to Mr Chekov's description at least. I think that I can be there in, oh, five minutes if I move quickly."

"Do. I think that I can see some thatched roofing myself, but it's hard to tell through the trees. If it is the cottage, I'm fairly close too, but I can't be certain."

_"Should have climbed a tree to see better, like me"_ thought Uhura, swinging herself gracefully down to the mossy forest floor. Out loud, all she said was,

"Sounds good, sir. I'll meet you there."

* * *

"That can't be right."

Christine looked up at the sound of Sulu's voice, and her jaw dropped.

Straightening up from her task of hacking her way through some brambles, she joined her companion in his ogling of the building before them. It was a cottage, alright, but not the one that they had been hoping to find. This was very obviously the case, because it seemed to be made of sweets. The dying light glistened on the icing glaze of the roof, and made the boiled-sweet masterpiece of the chimney glow. Sulu whipped out his tricorder in a flash, and began scanning.

"Sugar products." He spoke in a voice of hushed incredulity, gaping at the display, and then seemed to get a grip on himself. "Well, synthetic sugars on some sort of internal framework, but still-" He broke off, shaking his head.

"So it would be safe to eat?" Sulu shot Chapel a surprised look. She flushed slightly, but continued, somewhat defensively. "What? I don't know about you, but I for one am starving. I just trekked for miles through a dark, disgusting, muddy forest with you, if you'd care to remember!"

She might have gone on, but cut off her speech with a short squeal as the cottage door jerked open from inside. A truly ancient-looking old woman appeared from within and grasped Sulu's arm. When she grinned, it looked as though a walnut was giving birth to a pair of acorns, so stained were her remaining teeth.

"If you are hungry, my dears," she leered. "Then come on in. I have the oven nice and hot- all ready for you."

* * *

Uhura felt her spirits lift still further as the trees before her opened out into a wide clearing, the cottage she had seen earlier in the centre. There seemed to be an unusually high amount of brambles about, especially towards the rear of the building, but there was a clear, grassy path leading to the doorway, and she smiled as she wandered down it.

As she drew closer, however, she could see that the door was hanging slightly open, and was considerably damaged. Puzzled, she flipped open her communicator as she walked, and called the Captain.

"I've found a cottage, sir, but the door doesn't seem to be locked, so I don't see that this can be-"

At the sound of her voice, both occupants of the cottage turned towards the door. From his position in the hayloft, Chekov could only shout out a wholly inadequate warning;

"Uhura, look out!"

The wolf's paws scrabbled against the flagstones.

Uhura snapped her communicator closed, stopping in her tracks a little way from the cottage door, which suddenly burst open in an explosion of splinters.

The wolf leapt.

Uhura screamed…


	5. Chapter 5

The old woman hadn't been lying about the oven. Nurse Chapel found it hard to tear her eyes away from it. The massive door was open, and a wall of flames billowed out heat from the cavern within the- thankfully stone- chimney. The cottage seemed much more solid from the inside- perhaps the candy was just an outer layer?

The old woman was still holding Sulu's arm. She squeezed it appraisingly and smiled.

"Lovely big muscles."

In the ordinary way of things, Sulu would have felt gratified that someone had noticed the fruits of his regular workouts, but there was something about the woman's toothless grin that made him pull back. Or try to, at any rate. The crone was small, and certainly looked frail enough, but he could no more escape her grip than if he was being held by one of the mobile vices in the Enterprise's science labs.

"Uh, thanks," he managed. Doing his best to signal "help me" to Nurse Chapel with his eyes, he tried asking, "Would you mind letting go of them now please?"

The old hag's next move took them both by surprise. Moving faster than either crewmember would have believed possible, she snatched Sulu's other forearm and twisted both of his arms behind his back. Sulu yelped in pain, forced to bend almost double under her grasp.

Seeing that Sulu was helpless, Nurse Chapel surreptitiously drew her hypodermic from her bag, setting it to a powerful sedative. As the withered crone steered a struggling Sulu across the cottage floor, Chapel darted behind her and quickly injected a dose beneath the shoulder blade. To the nurse's everlasting shock, the woman merely treated her to a lopsided grin, before continuing as though nothing had happened.

"Into the oven you go, dearie." she heard, as the crone pushed Sulu down, his knees pressing against the stone ledge which was all that separated him from the hungry flames. He was resisting, but it was obvious that the old woman had the advantage. In sheer desperation, Chapel snatched at what seemed to be an enormous birdcage, hanging from the cottage ceiling.

"You let him go!" she screamed, and swung. The cage was heavier than she had expected, and she found herself swinging with it. The iron base of the cage struck the crone in the back, whiplash jerking Nurse Chapel off her feet. The effect on the old hag, though, was much more impressive. Seeming to lose her balance, she threw up her arms, releasing Sulu, and with a piercing screech, toppled over him into the depths of her own oven. The great door swung back to its place with a very final _thung_.

Chapel could feel the tears starting already as she stumbled to her feet. "I…I didn't mean for that to-" she choked. "I was just trying-" she stopped as Sulu put his arms around her.

"I know." he whispered. "Thank you, Christine."

She hugged him back, knowing that he would need comforting too, after the trauma of what they had just been through. She started to cry onto his shoulder as soft, white light engulfed them.

* * *

James Kirk wasn't sure why anyone would just leave their axe behind, resting against the stump of a chopped down tree. Alright, perhaps you might if you had to drag the tree away first, but this tree had been down for a couple of days at least, any fool could tell that. There were things growing across the cut surface. And it was a good axe, the blade gleaming in the sunlight.

He wasn't sure, either, why he had picked the axe up as he passed the tree. As he walked, he tried to convince himself that he was being completely rational. After all, it made sense, given the possibility that their phasers were ineffective here, to have something like this on you. Yes, and not even for aggressive purposes. He could use it to open that door Chekov was locked behind, get his crew together again.


End file.
